Maggie Cheung's split personality

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Life is a tough balancing act for Hong Kong movie superstar
Maggie Cheung, juggling homes in two distinct cultures as she mulls
her response to the growing siren calls of Hollywood.

Raised largely in Britain, Cheung made her career in Hong Kong
after winning a local beauty pageant at the age of 18. In recent
years, she has split her life between homes in Hong Kong and
Paris.

Her intimacy with cultural dislocation has, she says, benefited
her work as an actress, providing a wider range of experience on
which to draw as she approaches her different characters.

"The downside is I'm constantly torn, and I feel a bit like a
schizophrenic sometimes and I don't like it,'' Cheung, 40, told
AFP.

Cheung's close link with France grew out of the decision by
French director Olivier Assayas to cast her in his 1996 film
Irma Vep.

The two fell in love and married in 1998, then grew apart and
separated two years later, although Cheung maintained a home in
Paris.

"It's so extreme, the French and the Chinese ... really the two
most extreme people you can have in this world,'' said Cheung, who
has to make major behavioural adjustments moving between the two
countries.

"When I get off the plane in Hong Kong, I switch the button ...
OK, superstar, here I come, sunglasses. You behave in a certain way
because people are like that and that's what they expect from
you,'' she said.

"They have their way of speaking, and if you speak another way,
they're going to go: 'Oh, she's changed'.''

By the same token, she feels a need to tone down her Cantonese
side in France.

"Over there I'm this rude person, too blunt, unsophisticated. So
again I have to adjust so that people don't get offended by the way
I am,'' she said.

"When you're in a country. When you're with people. You want to
fit in, and that's hard when I'm never fitting in anywhere. But I'm
finding that balance for myself now,'' she added.

A veteran of 80 films spanning two decades, Cheung is a
household name in Hong Kong and a massive star elsewhere in Asia
but, until very recently, was little known to western audiences,
particularly in the United States.

She started her movie career as a comic sidekick to martial arts
star Jackie Chan, but became better known abroad for her
collaborations with the internationally acclaimed Hong Kong
director Wong Kar-wai - most recently with 2001's In the Mood
For Love.

Then, in 2004, she won the best actress award at the Cannes Film
Festival for her role as the junkie wife of a dead Canadian rock
star in Clean - also directed by Assayas who specifically
wrote the part with Cheung in mind.

That prize, coupled with the US box office success later in the
year of the Chinese martial arts epic Hero, finally caught
Hollywood's attention.

"It's opened up doors for sure,'' said Cheung, who was in New
York for a screening of Clean at the gala opening of the Asian
American Film Festival.

Cheung sees some irony in the idea of being "discovered'' by
Hollywood 21 years into her career.

"But it doesn't bother me. I'm glad I waited for them to know
who I am, rather than me coming to them,'' she said. "Ten years
ago, if I'd really really tried here, and come and met everybody
and been really aggressive and not shy, I think I could have landed
one or two American films.

"But now people are knocking on my door. I prefer it that way,''
she said.
In fact, Cheung believes the new-found attention has less to do
with her and more with the general resurgence of Asian cinema.

"It's got a lot to do with timing,'' she said. "It's a moment
where the western audience, especially in America, realises there's
some good stuff out there (in Asia) and that they can mix it up and
use it.''

Cheung also feels that the higher profile of the Asian-American
community in the United States has opened up casting opportunities
for Asian actresses whom Hollywood had all too often restricted to
exotic, geisha-style roles or martial arts movies.

"It's no surprise to see Asian faces in normal situations now.
Robert De Niro's secretary can be Asian. She doesn't have to be
blonde any more,'' Cheung said.